Sunday, December 7, 2008

Oh, wait, there is, or was: Until this past spring, the infamous Article 301 of the Turkish penal code made it illegal--and punishable by imprisonment--to publicly insult "Turkishness" or the "Republic." (Now, under the April amendments, this only applies to purportedly more specific jabs at the “Turkish Nation” or the “Republic of Turkey.")

Though limitations on free speech (especially when they affect our ability to watch funny videos on YouTube) are of course no laughing matter, us yabancı smart-asses have found plenty of humor using this to cry foul at a variety of minor slights that we see as being very un-Turkish:

I married a Turkish woman, so that's why I'm here. :) I'm in IT. I'm also involved in an Internation theater Group here called Speech Bubbles (www.speechbubbles.com). I found them on accident after I moved here and was very happy to have found them!

If you're using beatfiltering or something like that you can use the host file and then you can use youtube without the extra steps.